To contradict this though if you look at another example of a classic American tragic figure like Blanche Dubois, you see that enlightenment is not achieved. Though she does go through terrible suffering it seems all for naught as she is taken away at the end of the play, But it cannot be said that she is not tragic. Therefore a better measure is needed. Clinton Trowbridge wrote that "tragedy must create an impending, ever-growing sense that the character will be destroyed yet we must never for a moment regard the tragic hero's struggle against his fate as absurd" (42). This measure seems to work, but much like how the part of enlightenment seems to be the flaw in Merle's definition, so is the latter part of Trowbridge's where he states that we cannot feel that the "hero's struggle" is "absurd" for if we look at that part in isolation one example immediately jumps out that disproves it. Luke in the movie Cool Hand Luke often conjures up absurd images whether it be eating 50 eggs raw or telling of how he got arrested for chopping the heads off of parking meters, or even his many repeated attempts at escape just to be brought back in a mangled heap time and time again. It almost seems as though it is a comedy and yet at the end of the film when he is shot we feel that his struggle against society is one that is tragic because no matter how far he ran trying to escape he still was brought back to the one place he didn't want to be, no matter how absurd this notion seems to us, it is still tragic when placed in the context of Cool Hand Luke. So Then what can be said to be tragic? Aarnes writes that "tragedy is an imitation, not of men but of action and life, of happiness and misfortune" (99). The answer probably lies in a combination of all possible definitions, somewhere in the middle between absurdity and enlightenment and pain and misfortune we find tragedy. Tragedy in essence is a trap and once one steps inside there is no possible way of getting out alive.